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Malaysian elections expose serious divides

Wearing a bright blue shirt and a grim expression, Prime Minister Najib Razak appeared before the media on Monday to sombrely acknowledge that his coalition had won general elections for the 13th time in a row.

He had reason to be cheerless. The National Front coalition's victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections despite losing the popular vote, has not only exposed the entrenched racial divide in the country but also a new schism - between the rural poor who preferred the status quo and the urban middle-class who wanted change.

Healing the divisions will be a big challenge for Najib, who took the oath of office Monday to begin his second five-year term after surviving the fiercest challenge to the National Front's 56-year rule. If left untended, the racial and social divisions could undermine the stability of Southeast Asia's third-largest economy.

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On the face of it, the National Front appears to have done well. It won 133 seats in the 222-member Parliament - down a fraction from the 135 it won in 2008. The opposition People's Alliance coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim won 89 seats. But look deeper and the numbers carry a grim story for Najib:

The National Front polled 5.22 million votes to the opposition's 5.49 million votes, according to calculations by The Malaysian Insider, an independent news website.

The National Front banked heavily on three states with large rural populations - Sarawak, Sabah and Johor - where many people from indigenous groups and the ethnic Malay majority are beholden to the government for handouts traditionally given to them. The three states alone, out of Malaysia's 13, accounted for more than half of the 133 seats won.

People in many urban areas - especially Chinese who are Malaysia's second largest ethnic group - voted overwhelmingly for the opposition, reflecting the huge disenchantment with the government's affirmative action policies that favour Malays.

Speaking at the news conference, Najib blamed a "Chinese tsunami" for the coalition's performance.

"On the whole, the people's decision this time shows a trend of voting polarisation," Najib said.

"This worries the government, because if it's not handled well, it could spark tension."

Many opposition supporters also believe the coalition resorted to fraud to win, including using migrants from Bangladesh as illegal voters. The government and electoral authorities deny it.

Despite losing the popular vote, the National Front benefited from gerrymandering of constituencies.

In Sarawak, on Borneo island, nearly all of the six constituencies won by the opposition had between 26,000 and 40,000 voters each.

In contrast, the National Front won 20 seats in Sarawak, where each constituency had about 10,000 voters.

"What we are seeing here is a regime that has used the trappings of power to stay in power," said Bridget Welsh, a political science professor at the Singapore Management University.

"The reality is that many people will see this election as an election bought and stolen. There will be a huge trust deficit for the National Front."

The results also reflect the complexities of modern-day Malaysia, which evolved from a 1950s backwater of rice paddies and tin mines into a country where cities like Kuala Lumpur and its famous Petronas Twin Towers are only an hour's drive from rural rubber and palm oil plantations.